Posts by John Ross

This is an important year for Europe as economic slowdown is likely – the IMF projects EU growth will fall from 2.1% in 2018 to 1.6% in 2019. Regarding major external influences which can improve or worsen this situation, the US will also slow, the IMF projecting a decline in growth from 2.9% to 2.3%…

Good relations between China and Russia are the most important international factor to maintain world peace and geopolitical stability in the face of proven US aggression and adventurism – as shown in its invasion of Iraq, catastrophic intervention in Libya and other disasters. The reasons for this are analysed on this website in ‘Good China-Russia…

China’s leading international role in fighting climate change was strongly illustrated in a recent Bloomberg article pointing out that it was changes in China’s public transport system. not US electric car markers such as Tesla, that were playing a key role in reducing CO2 emissions. The reason is that public transport uses much heavier vehicles…

Gallup carries out an annual international poll on approval of the leadership of major countries. This year’s poll, covering 134 countries, had a striking conclusion – China’s leadership has overtaken the US in approval not only globally but in every continent surveyed outside North America and possibly Australasia. This is clearly a dramatic shift in international…

Since 1978 there have been three huge international tests of economic analysis and thinking. First, the unparalleled success of China’s reform and opening up. Second, the disastrous failure of the West’s ‘shock therapy’ in Russia starting in 1992. Third, the international financial crisis starting in 2008. In each of these enormous tests China’s economic thinking…

Major events, such as the Trump administration launching tariff aggression against China, inevitably ruthlessly cut away hollow rhetoric and allow the objective facts of a situation to be seen – including revealing how the different forces in a situation really judge it. A particularly striking example of this principle, with deep implications not only for…

The following article, showing the way China has become the main strategic pillar of globalisation, was written to analyse Xi Jinping’s visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos. However the article has not dated as the analysis has been vindicated by events following this. Anti-globalisation and protectionist tendencies were already developing in US policy before Trump’s…

The new round of high-level economic and trade consultations between China and the United States started in Beijing on 21 February morning against a background whereby the world, and the U.S., now has a more accurate understanding of the consequences of a “trade war”. When President Donald Trump initially launched tariffs against China, two perspectives were put…

‘Mr. Trump has looked to calm markets, which have gyrated in recent days’ – that was the comment of the Wall Street Journal on the phone call between President’s Xi Jinping and Donald Trump on 29 December. The markets the Wall Street Journal was referring to in particular were US share markets. On 28 December,…

The following article on ‘The New Shape of World Politics – Disorder in the West, Stability in the East’ analyses the reasons for the Trump administration introducing tariffs against China and the background to the recent G7 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summits. It was originally published in Chinese by Sina Finance Opinion Leaders, therefore some issues…